American peoples launch anticolonial cry in Quito after 530 years of conquest

Hundreds of activists from indigenous, black and environmental organizations from 22 countries in the Americas broadcast this Wednesday from the capital of Ecuador an anti-colonial, anti-racist and anti-extractivism message, commemorating the 530th anniversary of the arrival of Spain to the new continent.

With two separate sit-ins outside the Ministry of the Environment and in front of the monument to Isabel la Católica, in the commercial center of Quito, the activists thus concluded the call “First Meeting for the Liberation of Black and Indigenous Peoples against Exclusion, Discrimination and the Defense of the Territories”.

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Representatives of some 180 organizations of Latin Americathe United States and Canada participated in this meeting that began last Monday and that, among other objectives, seeks to harmonize a position with a view to the next world summit on climate change (COP27), which will take place in Egypt next November.

The call “Declaration of Indigenous, Black and Afro-descendant Anticolonial Resistance” has been signed by organizations from Canada, the United States, Mexico, Chile, Honduras, Nicaragua, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Uruguay, Brazil, Haiti, Argentina, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, Panama, Suriname, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Uganda, Cuba and Venezuela.

“Environmental emergency” in the Amazon

In the meeting, the Amazon jungle was declared in “environmental emergency” and the governments that share this basin have been held responsible for having allowed the excessive exploitation of its natural resources.

The Ecuadorian Leo Cerda, one of the organizers of the meeting and who represents the group “Napo Resists”, He highlighted the participation of social organizations from all over the Americas, especially indigenous and Afro-descendant groups.

The climate crisis, the deterioration of the protection of human rights, extreme poverty, the accelerated contamination of the forests are, among others, consequences of a model that excludes the majority of human beings and that comes from colonization, Cerda assured. in an interview with EFE.

Activists from indigenous, black and environmental organizations from 22 countries in the Americas participate in the broadcast of an anti-colonial, anti-racist and anti-extractivism message, within the framework of the commemoration of the 530th anniversary of the arrival of Spain to the new continent, on the outskirts of the Ministry of the Environment, in Quito (Ecuador). (Photo: EFE/ José Jácome)

They demand “Self-determination”

“The struggle for liberation and self-determination”are the objectives of the Latin American peoples, who continue to be submerged in poverty and underdevelopment, he added.

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In addition, Cerda stressed that “Without racial justice there can be no climate justice”since he insisted that indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples are victims of colonization and excessive exploitation of natural resources in the region.

Barely “1% of the population owns 80%” of the continent’s natural resources, which means that colonization never represented an opportunity for progress for the native peoples of the region, Cerda said.

They demand a change of model

Therefore, he indicated that the organizations that have gathered at the meeting of Quito They have warned that it is necessary to change the model, because the survival of humanity today also depends on it.

Among the resolutions of the meeting there is also solidarity “with the demands of the Haitian people regarding the genocidal, colonial and extractive interventions that they currently experience” the inhabitants of that Caribbean nation.

He also demanded the recognition of “the free ancestral migration of this continent” and demanded the “decriminalization of migrants.”

“We reject contemporary colonialism over the territories of our region” Y “We demand recognition and historical reparation to indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples for the genocides and crimes against humanity they have suffered” throughout the story, it was added in the resolution of the encounter.

Members of the Black and Indigenous Liberation Movement (BILM) protest in front of the Ministry of the Environment in commemoration of Columbus Day, in the north of Quito, on October 12, 2022. (Photo by RODRIGO BUENDIA / AFP) (RODRIGO BUENDIA/ )

empowered women

For its part, Lucia Ixchiugroup representative “Guatemala Solidarity Festivals” He highlighted the participation of women in the Quito meeting and said that this has been a space for the proposals of this sector to be heard.

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Ixchiu She stressed that indigenous women have recovered spaces and today have become the defenders of ancestral territories, threatened by extractivism.

“The Amazon is in danger because it is being looted by transnational extractive companies with the complicity of governments” of the region, added the activist after assuring that this pattern is repeated on the continent and in the world.

Source: EFE

Source: Elcomercio